"Major" Cleaning Frequency with Freshwater Tank?

Nooooo, you dont do any of that, thats more like coldwater, like goldfish, you do water changes mainly to clean, you never really take anything out, especially the fish.

Welcome!
No, you never have to tear apart a tank like that unless you are moving it or doing a massive change/cleaning of the tank after 10 years or something.

You simply clean the gravel using a gravel vacuum that is syphon operated and remove 30-50% of the water a week. This is just a rough guideline, you may do a little more, or a little less, depending on what kind of fish you have and how many. More fish = more waste.

Have you read up on what it means to cycle a tank? That should be your first step. Basically, fish waste produces ammonia which is very toxic to fish (it causes skin burns/irritation, stress, and decreased gill function). After a little while, a set of bacteria forms in the filter that processes this harmful ammonia to another substance called nitrites. This is even more poisonous and deadly to the fish. Again, another set of bacteria will colonize that will process this into something called nitrates, which are the end product. They are far less toxic and these are what water changes are designed to remove. You will want to keep them below about 40 parts per million, or as close to zero as you can get. You will need testkits to monitor this.

Some people cycle the tank (make it stable through this process, at which point no ammonia or nitrites will be detected) by using live fish. This however can cause extreme stress and/or death to the fish and is easily avoided by doing a "fishless cycle." All this involves is adding ammonia (the kind you buy at the store - pure) to the empty tank water (filter running, of course). Then you wait until the nitrites spike and go down and nitrates appear. Then the tank is safe for fish. This is just a nutshell example, there is more to it than that.

Ask any and all questions you may have - you have stumbled upon the best resource out there. Many books provide false (or misleading) info and don't have the benefit of many people's experience.

A 55g is a perfect choice - the more water you have, the more stable it will be and the more leeway you have before something can go wrong. Bigger is better in the fish world

Welcome to the hobby!
Once you start a tank, it takes some time to 'mature'. Beneficial bacterial colonies build up on filter materials (sponges, little ceramic tubes, etc.) which are designed to stay in place for a long time. The bacteria break down ammonia produced by the fish and turn it into nitrate.
Each week or so, a partial water change is needed to reduce the amount of nitrate in the tank. Filter materials like floss (for filtering out fine particles of dirt) can be replaced, and the biologically active media just needs a rinse in a bucket of the water you remove during the water change. It's best to get a gravel vacuum (siphon with a larger 'bell' portion on the end) so that you can clean dirt out of the gravel at the same time as you remove some of the water.
Other than cleaning algae off the glass, that's about all the maintenance that's usually required in a fish-only tank.
HTH

I am pretty new myself. I am on my second tank (55) up from my first which I am converting to saltwater over the next few months (29). I do about a 30% change once a week and vacuum out the waste. Pay close attention to the cycling warnings! When I started my 29 gallon I was uninformed of the cycling process. It cost me a Jack Dempsey and weeks of daily water changes. When I started my 55 gallon tank I used bio-spira. Bio-Spira is a packet of living bacteria to add to your tank at the same time you introduce fish. It eliminates the whole cycling problem. I have to say that this is a very addictive hobby. Even with the initial labor and problems I have had (ick and high nitrites) I love it. Good luck with your aquarium and welcome aboard!

Actually, I tend to do major resets about every 10 years, +/- ~5 years. I get bored with a setup and decide to have radically different fish in a radically different setup. Not too long ago I broke down the 50, after ~18 years. The only 55 up right now is mere infant, setup maybe 5 years ago, I finally like the arrangement, so it should last some time now.

Old tank tear-down = UGF?

I think that old tearing the tank apart every so often was due to the need to remove and clean the undergravel filters that were so popular.

In my cichlid tank, I change 50% of the water every 2 weeks and do a slight gravel vac then. About every 2 months or so I remove the rock and plastic plants and wipe them down and do a really good gravel vac. Every 2 months I clean the canister filters, I have two on that tank and I do them on alternate weeks. About every 6 months I remove the tubing from the canister and clean it really well.

The planted tanks (2) get weekly water changes canister cleanings every 2 months, tubing every 6 months. Rarely gravel vac but I'm often moving plants around, trimming and replanting and that takes a lot of time.

The discus tank which is barebottom, no gravel or plants at all, gets 4 water changes a week, 50 gallons each in a 105 gallon tank and gets siphoned clean 2x/day, and fed 3 to 4 times a day. They get handmade food as well. And they get special water treatments from time to time due to bacterial issues from crowded tank and heavy feeding. 3 filters get cleaned weekly. That is a lot of work.

Q tank gets 2x/week water changes.

But keep in mind that it depends on what fish and how many you keep, as I said. Don't be intimidated by all the things anona does - discus take a lot more time and effort than most other freshwater fish...

And not all plastic plants/decor must be removed and washed. If you think it looks "dirty" you can clean it but it isn't a must. My plastic plants I have in one small 10g tank never get dirty and have never been washed.

I clean my filter media when I feel like it (it often goes months without me doing it though) and probably don't clean my tubing as much as I could.

Once the fishes' needs are met, anything above and beyond that is the work that you make it. If small specs of algae really get to you, you'll spend a lot more time scrubbing than some. If you keep a very heavily stocked tank, you will be doing more water changes than some.

fish keeping is suppose to be a simple hobby, if you spend more than 10 minutes a week in maintanence then your doing something wrong as noted by some authors but you can be as scientific as you want to be but ive never found alot of it necessary, if my tank starts to look ugly and gravel/glass cleaning doesnt do it then i break it down, i just use alot of ammonia chips to keep its initial rise down and never had a problem but i also keep only a few small fish in a 55 gallon, too many here overstock thier tank anyway in which case being scientific becomes much more necessary